One day after a fierce late autumn storm pummeled low-lying areas of Westport, it would be hard to describe the scene on East Beach Road Tuesday afternoon as anything other than a disaster.

Even as Westport Highway Department workers in backhoes scooped up load after load of debris, millions of cobbles and tons of sand from the washed out road and loaded it into trucks for removal, it was hard to tell where the beach ended and the road began.

All around, the shore and road lay littered with parts of walls, pieces of roofs, picnic tables, dozens of downed electrical wires and utility poles. Washed up or uncovered by the storm were several old storage tanks, a rusted old engine, tires, bricks, glass and personal effects strewn far and wide. One shack, its ocean-facing wall completely ripped away, lay completely open to the elements and another, a modern home on stilts, showed evidence of the storm surge that washed around and through it — a garage door facing the road was pushed outward nearly a foot.

East Beach Road will remain closed for the foreseeable future while highway workers clean up the mess, and a full recovery will take some time as at least one portion of the road, washed out and undercut by the storm surge, needs asphalt work. As for exactly how long it will take, nobody could say Tuesday.

Town administrator James Hartnett said more precise information won’t be known until the road surface is cleared of all debris and a proper inspection can be done. He said he planned to meet with highway department director Chris Gonsalves Tuesday afternoon to talk about the next steps; Gonsalves was among those cleaning up debris along the road and was not available to provide any updates.

While Hartnett agreed that town workers can handle a good portion of the cleanup on their own, thus sparing the town expensive un-budgeted costs, the bill could rise once the road gets a good inspection.

“We may need to bring in an outside contractor” if the road is particularly bad, Hartnett said.

To Hartnett and at least two people who ventured onto the closed road Tuesday, Monday’s storm was far worse than the pounding Westport took almost exactly one year ago, when a similar storm caused significant erosion and flooding two days before Christmas.

"It's the worst since the last hurricane, maybe 10 or 12 years ago," Hartnett said.

“Way worse” than last year, added Shannon Ashton, who parked her car near the Gooseberry Island causeway at the western end of East Beach Road at about 12:30 p.m. She had wanted to walk the island and do some beach combing, but the state closed the causeway after the storm and she decided to walk a ways down East Beach instead. Ashton said the damage was far beyond anything she thought she’d see, and she went in expecting it to be bad after seeing a few photos online.

“You gotta question the logic of people building these shacks right on the water,” she said. “Every time you get a storm this is what happens. It's almost unbelievable.”

For now, highway workers are trucking some of the cobble and sand offsite and using it to buttress washed out areas near the Gooseberry causeway. But a lot of it will stay on the side of East Beach Road, Hartnett said, so owners of East Beach lots can use it to shore up their undercut foundations. Wood and other items pulled out are being separated and will be disposed of either at the town yard or with independent contractors.

Hartnett added that the town will try to make allowances for East Beach summer residents to inspect their properties, even if the road hasn't been totally opened to traffic.